Women Socio-economic Empowerment and the Growth of Nigeria Democracy. a Case Study of Udi Local Government Area
CHAPTER ONE
Objectives of the Study
- To assess trends of women participation in leadership positions.
- To evaluate the effectiveness of mechanisms which were used to empower women’s in leadership positions.
- To evaluate the selection and placement criteria for leadership positions.
- To assess the community and political leaders perception on women’s empowerment in leadership position in Udi LGA administration sectors.
CHAPTER TWO
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURES
The concept of women’s Empowerment
Women’s empowerment is very important tool for development process in any country. The multilateral and bilateral aid organization, as well as NGOs has emphasised the importance of women empowerment in development process. For the government to achieve sustainable development requires ensuring that women’s are involved in development leadership position.
Jope/2005- Argued that inorder to facilitate women empowerment strategies must be came one of striategies of any country in order to have sustainable development.
Women’s Empowerment: Globlal perspective
Women’s who constitute roughly 50 % of the total population received only as mall share of development opportunities. Due to the nexus of traditional factors such as caste, religion, class feudal attitudes and family status. As a result, women were left on the periphery of political life/ women’s development of 1985: UNDP: 1993:135). In this back ground, it was felt that unless they are empowered and assured representation in elected local institutions, their status in the society can not be improve. Accordingly in order to improve their status and to ensure their participation different measurements were initiated by governments which have made the decentralized system more democratic (human development report (1993)
In India with the dawn of independence and the adoption of the Republican constitution. Several measures were taken by parliament and the government of India, which improve the status of women in Indiaohter that the constitution guaranteed them equal right of participation in the political process through the provision of universal adult franchise (Arts, 325 & 326) along with equal opportunity and right in education and employment (Arts,14,15,16(2) and 17) women empowerment, calls for sensitive, empathetic and egalitarian governmental and non-governmental initiatives. No doubt, the 73rd and 74th Amendment Act have made it possible for the women’s to become part of the planning and process of development in relation to their local needs.
In Kenya, increasing women’s seats in parliament through the use of temporary special measures such as guotas show that political will is more important to making progress than level of resources. Following that by taking measurement of increasing girls attendance at secondary school in the country and by involving bench-marking for gender equality in the private & public sector the number of illiterate women’s have increased and then their involvement in political social and economic have in creased this implies sustianble development of the country.
In sum, the above concepts indicates women empowerment lead to good governance and great transparency
DEMOCRACY
The concept of democracy has been defined differently by different scholars depending on the circumstance and interest of their research. Accordingly, democracy here emphasizes political freedoms and procedures, including „government by the people‟, political rights and elections or civil liberties. It entails „civilian politics‟ that provide substantive values such as peace, social and economic development, or equality and justice in every political community even within the scope of this research.
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY
Research Design
According to Bryman. (2008:31) research design entails the detail exploration of the specific case, which could be community, person or organization. Generally, research design is a framework for collecting and analyzing data as the arrangement of conditions for collection and analysis of data in a manner that aims to combine relevance to the research purpose with economy in producer.
Research design is determined by the nature of a research problem, objectives, questions, data, sample and population, and factors that affect data collected. Research methods can be classified in to three groups namely, descriptive, experimental, and causal researches.
The research methodology used for describing, recording, analyzing and interpreting the nature of the womens empowerment in leadership in position Udi LGA is descriptive type, since the study was focused on critically assessing and evaluating the women’s empowerment in leadership position Udi LGA.
Research Approach (General research strategy)
The study was both qualitative and quantitative research approach. The reason for selecting this approach is to measure the physical performance in qualitative terms and financial performance in terms of quantitative terms.
Research Methods
Approaches to design research project
Survey research method was used for this research because it is an appropriate method for measuring respondent’s opinion and attitude towards the Women’s Empowerment towards the politics and collecting original data from target population.
CHAPTER FOUR
RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
Background of Respondents
The clear picture of respondents’ background, the collected data was analyzed based on the following characteristics such as sex, age, experience, qualification and marital status.
Based on table 2 above, the numbers of women were represented in a greater proportion than men; because when respondents were categorized by sex, 59 (59.6% of the total) were women, while the remaining 40 (40.4% of the total) were men.
As the minimum age allowed employing in FDRE governmental offices is above 18 years, its category is started from 18. The age distribution reveals that most of the age category was found concentrated in the ranges between 26 to 35 years age. On the other hand, when the respondents’ age categories were analyzed by sex, both men & women respondents’ age respectively had shown peak frequency count value in the range between 26-35 years. In the age category less than 25 years, the proportion of women respondents which 9(15.3%) was found greater than men which was 6(15%). This may be rationalized for that women are getting chances to join higher education only in recent years.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Summary
Attempt to meet the above stated purpose of the research, basic questions were Stated and answered.
A description survey study with quantitative and qualitative research approach (mixed method) was employed, and the related literature was reviewed.
The target population in this study was seven sectors of Udi LGA.
Out of these target population, 7 sectors were selected through simple random sampling (lottery techniques), and purposive techniques to include women headed sectors and simple random sampling (lottery techniques) to get the sample size, %), Udi LGA sector heads, 5(50%), human resource development Co-coordinators, 5(100%), gender experts and 6(100%), WEB were selected for the purpose of interviews through available techniques as their number was few and manageable.
Different data collected tools were employed to carry out the study including questionnaires, interview and document survey. The data gained analysed All the required data obtained through these tools were discussed, quantified, narrated and described using logical arguments, triangulations and Comparisons. Finally, a conclusion was drawn and possible solutions were recommended.
The major statistical tools used for this analysis were SPSS such as, frequently count, percentage, mean and standard deviation.
The analysis therefore, identified the following major findings.
- Regardless of its magnitude, almost in the studied Udi LGA, the status of women’s participation in leadership position is low as compared to male principal representation which is 82.85%.
- With related to professional up grading choices of respondents, only 18(30.5%) women were found having interest to upgrade in the field of leadership profession. Of those women respondents, 39(61.1%) were expert respondents. 20(33.9%) respondents were women in leadership position.
- Various barriers for women’s empowerment in ledearship position identified as major hindering factors such as personal, socio-cultural, educational and institutional barriers.
- Among socio-cultural barriers societal misconception about women’s role i.e., family and home responsibility such as birth children and home management.
- In relation to personal barriers lack of confidence and interest, to hold leadership positions
- Regarding institutional barriers, most respondents have rated that lack of support & encouragement from stakeholders during implementation phase, and the low requirement to meet leadership selection criteria were to be the most institutional hindering factors.
- In relation to educational factors low level of educational back-ground and absence of role models and mentors are rated highly.
- Most of the respondents agreed that performance appraisal, work experience, qualification were the major selection criterias and using these measures of selection & placement to leadership positions of schools largely affect women’s negatively.
- With related to mechanisms that women’s empowerment towards the politics effective gender sensitive planning, applying quota system during selection and placement, and applying regular M and E to implement gender related policies were found to be major effective mechanisms to raise thewomen’s involvement in leadership positions.
- In relation to perceptions and agreements of participants about sex and leadership roles most respondents were found having positive agreement to:
- Husbands should encourage their wife to participate in leadearship position agreed.
- Women lack self confidence to practice in leadership positions,
- Home and family related factors are highly hindering participation of women.
- Women leaders are less influential and acceptable by their followers than mean leader.
- Women leaders are wiser, emotional, stable, and responsible and entail leaders than men counterparts.
- Men having leadership position by merit should willingly give up in order giving greater room for women.
Conclusion
Based on the summary of major finding, the following conclusions have been drawn:-
- This shows that there were no adequate measures taken for women’s empowerment in leadership postions rate due to lack of strong commitment and attentions of politicians and governonrs officials.
- Factors that hinder women’s participation in leadership positions were socio-cultural, educational, institutional and personal and family responsibility as well as other related issues were found to be the key
- The main criteria used for woman’s selection and placement into decision- making structures leadership position performance appraisal, work experience. Professional qualification with high consideration of candidates where as gender preference and quota systems was regarded as minor considerations. This situation contradicts with the strategies of gender equity policies and as one way of hindering factor of female holding leadership positions.
- It was also indicated that women have been given priority when they had the same qualification and work experiences as their male counterparts. However, the gender policy strategies demand other mechanisms in order to narrow the gender-gap in key strategic positions.
- Based on the finding results, respondents belief about sex and leadership role have been cracked or perforated the agreement of women’s are naturally lack self-confidence to practice leadership positions and acceptable than men leaders by their followers. Therefore, there are negative perceptions which yet need to be changed to make the perception of respondents completely gender friendly
Recommendations
According to the findings and conclusions drawn above, the following recommendations are proposed for opportunities and challenges of women’s empowerment leadership position in the studied areas and other sectors of the Udi LGA.
- In order to have gender balanced decision making structure is the WEB should implement women’s empowerment at all levels of managerial leadership positions by taking affirmative actions such as Particularly giving larger quota to women’s experts to in leadership positions.
- According the conclusion of this research personal, institutional and socio- cultural factors affects the participation rate of women in leadership positions. Therefore, to overcome these hindering factors intensive training that focus on gender policy and strategy of the nation in relation to leadership position in all sectors of the Udi LGA should be given to all sexs.
- Based on the findings of this research revealed, this affirmative action should be strengthening in the leadership professions upgrading to raise the participation rate of women in leadership positions.
- To develop self confidence, self awareness and to develop positive perception about oneself, continuous training of women should be designed and establish women networking in order to share their experiences.
- With regard to leadership position there some modifications in must be selection and placement criteria, giving quota to compete with in men should be done to over come the problem of low women participation leadership positions.
Finally the researcher suggested titles for further study in relation to gender issues and leadership participation. Some of these are:-
- Implementations and problems gender mainstreaming planning and implementation in all sectors of the Udi LGA.
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